Very sensible choice!

There's practically no difference in IQ but most of those whizz bang features k20d upgraders are raving about on the k-5 are actually there on the k-7... It's a slicker machine but whichever you get, you'll still want a k-5

What a shame, I'll miss his contributions. He was treated a bit roughly sometimes on here IMHO, with his youth, dyslexia, and non-UK nationality taken into account I sometimes wished he could have been given a little more slack, PITA though he sometimes admittedly was! But aren't we all from time to time?

But perhaps he just left because he realised he was a bit too addicted to the site?

Please send that story in to AP Bernard, it's not often you hear about a police officer actually standing up for photographers rights!

Me, I'm in the 'be visible' camp and your story confirms that... the CPO might have come down on the man's side if you were stalking him with a long lens

I think I need to get that Tamron

Crumbs!

I don't tend to see colour noise like that with my K-7, and regularly shoot up to ISO1250. I'd advise setting the camera to NR>Low to avoid the coloured blotches in jpegs, or best of all, shoot RAW. Lightroom does a very pleasing job.

Pentax DA or DFA lenses are for digital (DFA ones also work with film SLRs).
Pentax FA or F lenses are autofocus lenses which will work on digital SLRs.
Pentax A lenses (sometimes described as PKA) are manual focus but otherwise work without limitations. (Look for the 'A' setting on the aperture ring if in doubt.)
Pentax M lenses (sometimes described as PK) as above but you also need to use them in manual exposure mode. (This means pressing the green button to meter every time you take a shot).
Pentax K lenses work the same as M lenses.

A great starting point would be something like a Pentax-A 50mm f1.7

We all have different priorities but I reckon for most existing Pentax users, a body which plugs-in as seamlessly as possible to the existing Pentax lens line up would be a key feature. Otherwise there is no advantage over a Panasonic or Sony Evil unless Pentax do something pretty bl**dy spectacular

And I'd be tempted towards a high quality compact over a micro-4/3 camera - some compacts have larger sensors than that!

How cropped are these Coker? The noise looks worse than you'd expect at ISO3200, if these were uncropped shots.

I had my first hairy moment of the winter yesterday. Roads were fine on my way to work, well a bit slushy, but I expected that. Then when I got to Kenilworth there was a complete white-out, several inches of snow on the road, and worryingly no traffic coming in the other direction.

I'm not too worried about driving on snow but towards Leamington there's a steep hill, and vehicles were queueing to go down it - still driving on packed snow. I didn't want my *new* Micra getting crushed between a truck and a sliding double decker bus, so I turned around and drove back on the virgin snow of the other lane and headed for the M40, which was fine.

The mechanic at the car yard I bought Meggy Micra from said they're good in snow cos they're front wheel drive, but I presume he was bullshitting>!